At 1:41 PM 2/5/95 -0700, Israel Stein wrote:
>For fortepiano (and harpsichord) problems, I suggest you consult the
>Harpsichord mailing list, where lots of folks could refer you to sources
>of the information you seek.
>
>To subscribe, send e-mail to: LISTSERV@ALBANY (if that doesn't work, try
>listserv@albany.edu)
>
>In the body of your message write:
>
>SUBSCRIBE HPSCHD-L yourfirstname yourlastname
>
>e.g. SUBSCRIBE HPSCHD-L Nanette Streicher
>
----------------
I encourage all of you with an interest in early keyboards to sign
up for this list, but as a regular participant over the past several months
I can tell you that you will not find very much discussion about
fortepianos. The talk deliberately focuses on harpsichords, virginals,
spinets, and clavichords. There was also a rather lengthly discussion
about historical temperaments not long ago. There is currently a long
winded discussion about tuning problems and temperament and even some
criticism of Owen Jorgersen on the early music list. If anyone cares to
join in with our unique perspective that support would be welcome.
The early music adress is:
LISTSERV@AEARN.BITNET or LISTSERV@AEARN.EDUZ.UNIVIE.AC.AT
Type only:
Subscribe EARLYM-L your name
------------------------------------------------------
Sorry for making this so long but I will tack on here part of a
dialog which is current, the last entry just came today. This might get
some of you interested.
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From: Aleksander Frosztega <froszteg%IX.NETCOM.COM@KSUVM.KSU.EDU>
Organization: Netcom
Subject: Jorgensen (was Tuning problems)
To: Multiple recipients of list EARLYM-L <EARLYM-L@AEARN.BITNET>
Dennis Johnson wrote:
>At 9:15 AM 1/22/95 +0000, Aleksander Frosztega wrote:
>
>Equal temperament *IS* a historic tuning. Every shred of evidence that
>we have indicates that it was widely, if not exclusively, practiced
>from about 1757 on. At least in Germany... I dislike E.T. myself but
>we cannot ignore that it existed and florished.
>
>Do not use Valotti (a late 18th-century tuning) for 17th-century music.
>It's wholly un-historic in that context (it would be like playing
>Chopin in Werckmeister III). Neither it nor its linear counterpart,
>Silberman linear, existed at that time. The problem here is that
>you're playing music of a broad time span. Use equal temperament.
It's ugly,
>but you can make an argument for its proper use...
>
>
>
>
>Aleksander Frosztega,
>Musicology, harpsichord.
>(Specialist in historic tuning)
------------------------------------
> I was trying to back off some from this dialog because I have a
>very busy week, but this one I just could not let go. Please,
>Aleksander, as a "specialist in historic tunings" you really should
>review the significant research done in this area in the past few
>years. The book I recommend is: Owen Jorgensen,"The Perfection of 18th Century
>Temperament, The Lost Art of 19th Century Temperament and The Science
>of Equal Temperament", Michigan State Univ. Press, East Lansing, 1991.
> We all know that the idea of equal temperament is very old
>indeed,(thousands of years), the ratios were calculated by Mersenne,
>and it was promoted by some prominent musicians and theorists in the
>18th Century. However, the acoustical information required to aurally
>produce an accurate equal temperament on pianos or harpsichords was not
>fully understood and collected into print until 1917 by William Braid
>White. The phrase "equal temperament" has existed in print since 1781,
>but it had a much different practical meaning then than it does now.
Today we mean one and only one thing when we describe equal temperament,
but at that time it simply meant that one could use all the keys without
>encountering a wolf. Please check Hipkins' tuning instructions for
>equal temperament in the mid-19th century. All he recommended was
>completing the circle of fifths while tuning from C back to C, as
>opposed to the conventional practice of breaking the circle while
>tuning between G# and Eb. (C-G-D-A-E-B-F#-C#-G#. then C-F-Bb-Eb). By
>this conventional practice, if G# served usefully as an Ab in the end,
>then it was equal temperament, if not, then the error was "in its
>appropriate place". Tuners at this time did not understand the theory
>of progressively beating intervals and believed that beat speeds behond
>6/sec. were an incomprehensible buzz. This conflict between a
>theoretically correct E.T. and what existed in practice was not seen
>as a serious dilemma, but there are some surviving 19th century studies
>which try to speculate an explanation for the obvious key colors in
>their "equal temperament". For some technical reasons it was possible
>to produce a reasonably accurate equal on organs by 1810, but this was
>rarely taken advantage of. If you are outside the US perhaps that explains why
>you may not have seen this reference yet. They ran a short press of only
>3000, but there are still some left. It is 800 pages and the price is
>$70.00. Also, the work of Alexander Ellis is of profound value in our
>understanding of 19th century European piano tuning.
Dennis Johnson
--------------------------------------------
Because your arguments seem to rely heavily on the works of Owen
Jorgensen, I should like to address his works and "temperament
revisionism" since Barbour.
Although Barbour's writings are not the first in this century that
addressed the topic of tuning and temperament they have had the most
profound effect on the way scholars thought about the subject.
Barbour's thesis was that the history of musical tuning was an
evolutionary one and that all tunings eventually "evolved" into equal
temperament, which he considered to be the most perfect of tunings and
the yardstick by which all else should be judged. It is this flawed
epistemology and its expression in the form of a "musical Darwinism"
that has engendered a sort of revolt by the protagonists of historically
informed performance led by Mark Lindley. Lindley points out that for
every music, there is a temperament and that equal temperament is
just as appropriate for, say, the virginalists as meantone is to
Schoenberg. He goes a bit too far, however, by implying that equal
temperament is an un-historical temperament and shouldn't be used in the
performance of early music (s.v., Bach and the Das wohltemperirte
Clavier). The result of this revisionist approach was to galvanize
performers into two camps: the 19th-century crowd (which thinks anything
other than ET sounds out of tune) and the early music crowd
(which thinks that ET sounds out of tune and refuses to use it, even
where it could or *should* be used).
Enter Owen Jorgensen. Prof. Jorgensen noticed that there where a great
many performers of early music that had no idea of how to tune their
keyboard instruments so he gather a collection of supposedly historical
temperaments, invented tuning methods for them and published them in his
_Tuning the Historical Temperaments by Ear_ (1977). This monograph,
just as _Tuning, Containing the Perfection... (1993) is based on
methods and, yea, temperaments that didn't exist! For example, he gives
instructions for tuning the "equal-beating well tempered version of the
Francisco Salinas 1/3 comma temperament in the acoustic tonality of c
major." Salinas never described this temperament! Jorgensen goes on to
describe the "Aron-Neidhardt well temperament" - only that neither Aaron
nor Neidhardt ever wrote about it! (Jorgensen's instructions actually
produce a variation of what is normally called Kirnberger III, only that
Jorgensen places the schisma in E-B instead of F# -C# where it belongs).
The whole premise of Prof. Jorgensen's works, that these temperaments
where tuned solely by ear, is wrong: There where two ways to tune in the
18th century, (1) by ear; (2) with a monochord. The primary sources
make this clear. Although the theory of beats (destructive interference)
was talked about by various 17th and 18th-century writers (chiefly
Sauveur and Robert Smith), it wasn't codified until Helmholtz. Thus, to
give instructions for "equal beating" 18th-century temperaments is
un-historical at best and deceptive at worst. Jorgensen doesn't convey
history, he invents it!
Anyone who has read either _Tuning, containing the Perfection_ or
_Tuning the Historical_ knows that they contain other flaws (what is
"well temperament"? ), some just as grave as the above. (Where in God's
Holy Name is the scientific apparatus commonly called documentation in
Jorgensen's work??? Why can't we be given quotes, source names and page
numbers?!?). We "Specialists in Historic Tuning" have even speculated
the un-wisperable: that Jorgensen can't even read the primary sources.
(To my knowledge, there is not *one* quote in any language other
than English in any of his works...) How can you study this field if
you can't read German, French or Italian (minimally)? The whole thesis
of _Tuning, contain the Perfection_, that true ET didn't exist
before the 20th century, is also specious. True ET doesn't exist today!
Any professional piano tuner will tell you that he/she
stretches octaves on the piano and any harpsichord tuner will tell you
that no matter *what* temperament is set, it's all out of tune 5 minutes
after you're done tuning (sometimes *while* you're tuning!). Of all
the harpsichord concerts that I've been to, only 3 have had really
in-tune harpsichords. Jorgensen rejects ET in the performance
of period music on the basis that it was impossible to tune perfectly
before 1917. My point: no temperament is perfectly in tune
(acoustically) "in the field," especially on the harpsichord, so the
"acoustically correct" thesis should be put on the Misthaufen.
"Who can I trust?" you might be asking. Other than the primary sources,
read anything by Mark Lindley, Rudolf Rasch and Dominique Devie. For
instructions on how to tune *real* historical temperaments, see:
Claudio di Veroli. _Unequal Temperaments and their Role in the
Performance of Early Music_. Buenos Aires (?), Argentina, 1978.
The whole point of my ramblings is that in recreating music of the past
we should must not forget the sonorities of the past created by tuning.
Just as we wouldn't use incorrect strings on a violin to play 17th-
century music, we should not use incorrect tunings.
To those reading Jorgensen and Barbour as the Word of God:
It's not.
Aleksander Frosztega
P.S. >The phrase "equal temperament" has existed in print since 1781<
The Germans used the phrase "gleichschwebende Temperatur" to denote
equal temperament
since the beginning of the
18th century and the French used the term "temperament egal" long before
1781.
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